A PRESTWICH couple who were told they couldn't marry in a church because of their 27-year age gap are to tie the knot in Bury next month.

Grandmother Ellen Channon (54) and boyfriend Pete Wellens (27), were shocked earlier this year when the Rev Ruth Wollaston of Besses United Reformed Church said their marriage would be "ill-advised."

The couple, of Webster Grove, Prestwich, were told in a letter from the minister that she would be unable to carry out the wedding ceremony and referred to the "considerable difference in the age between you."

But Ellen and Pete are to go-ahead with their marriage after all. They will wed in a civil ceremony, presided over by a Bury registrar, at the town's Bolholt Country Park Hotel on September 28.

The devoted couple, who have lived together for most of the duration of their seven year relationship, were devastated when plans for their church marriage which was due to take place this month collapsed.

Ellen, a divorcee, has five sons, three of whom are older than her husband-to-be. Because her first marriage took place in a register office, she had set her heart on a church wedding to Pete.